Even when they were ahead 1-0 last night, it simply didn’t seem like the Red Sox had what it was going to take to win game 7 of the ALCS.  The mojo wasn’t there.  Lester pitched well enough to win, but Boston’s offense simply could not get it together.   They created a few–too few–opportunities, but ended a lot of at-bats with checked swings called as third strikes.

I wish the Rays good luck and predict they will beat the Phillies in 5 games.  

Carolina basketball starts in 26 days.

Back in 2004, a great deal was made of the now famous Bloody Sock.  A lot was written–okay, too much was written–about Curt Schilling’s “gutsy” performance, about how he pitched through pain, how his pitching may not have been vintage Curt Schilling, but his heart certainly was.  It all quickly became overly dramatic, and it didn’t take long for people to start suggesting that it all was a ruse.  The unfortunate thing is all the excessive hype covered up the fact that, in reality, it was a gutsy performance.  We’re talking about the limited context of baseball here, but what Schilling did in Game 2 of the 2004 World Series really was pretty amazing.

We saw the same playing on heart from several Red Sox players in last night’s ALCS Game 6 between the Red Sox and the Rays.  Josh Beckett clearly is hurting and is not at his best.  But for five innings and 78 pitches, he gave the team everything he had.  Allowing only four hits (two of which were home runs), Beckett put the Red Sox in a position to win.  It was not the vintage post-season Beckett we saw last year; but being one of the best pitchers in baseball is not just about how hard you can throw.

Similar performances came from Hideki Okajima, Jonathan Papelbon, and Jason Veritek.  Okajima has not been able to repeat his sensational 2007 season this year, but he pitched his heart out last night in some very difficult middle innings.  Papelbon clearly does not have a great deal left in the proverbial tank, but he gutted his way through that final inning with whatever he could deliver.  Veritek’s go-ahead home run after posting a battering average of 0.00 in the series up to that point was nothing short of exhilarating.

It’s interesting that it largely has been the young guys that got the Red Sox to this point.  Pedroia has been sensational all year.  Lowrie stepped in for the injured Julio Lugo and has played extremely well.  But last night it was the veterans demonstrating that baseball is not just about youth and talent. 

As an aside, twenty-four-year-old Justin Masterson also was sensational last night, but for different reasons.  He does have youth and talent.  But after hitting the first batter he faced and falling behind in the count 2-0 to the potentially tying run, Masterson looked like he was going to collapse.  You could feel the momentum start to swing.  Timely visits from his catcher and pitching coach allowed Masterson to get his head together.  The next three pitches were strikes, retiring Iwamura, and he got B.J. Upton (a very dangerous batter) and Carlos Pena on infield pop-ups.

And so now the Red Sox go back to relying on youth:  John Lester, who, in game 2, looked very tired.  Boris Becker once set that the fifth set is all about heart.  The same can be said for games like last night’s and tonight’s.  Tampa Bay is a young and very talented team, but it has been a long season.  It will be the team that plays most from the heart tonight that wins.

So, there they were.  Down three games to one in the American League Championship Series, and losing 7-0 in game five.  Not only were they losing, they looked awful and had looked awful ever since losing that extra-innings heart-breaker in Game 2.  Games 3 and 4 were in Boston, and the Red Sox lost by a combined score of 22-5.

Game 5 had not looked any better, with Boston falling behind 2-0 before either team recorded an out.  Matsuzaka made it through only four innings but gave up 5 hits and 5 runs in that time.  By the time the second half of the seventh inning started, Boston was down 7-0, having only 2 hits.  Rookie Jed Lowrie started off the bottom of the seventh with a double, but Veritek and Kotsay both flew out to Upton (my vote up to that point for series MVP) in center field, and everything looked pretty hopelss.  The Rays were just 7 outs from the World Series.  Then, Crisp singles, getting Lowrie to third, and Pedroia singled in Lowrie in an 8-pitch at-bat (”yea, it’s not a shut-out”).  Up comes David Ortiz, who has had a miserable post-season (batting around .100 in this series).

It’s still unclear to me why the Rays manager did not bring in a different pitcher to face Ortiz.  He had hard-throwing lefty J.P. Howell in the bullpen, but he chose to let right-handed Balfour face left-hitting Ortiz.  Perhaps he thought a six-run lead was sufficient.  Perhaps Maddon simply had not seen (or remembered) the last two American League Championship Series in which the Red Sox had participated.  This is October, and these are the Boston Red Sox.  And this is Fenway.  Papi placed the ball nicely in the right-field stands, and suddenly it was a three-run game.

It was like the Red Sox suddenly started playing right-handed.  Like someone from the sidelines had yelled, “NOW!”  The momentum at that moment swung, and the Red Sox simply didn’t stop.  Papelbon quickly dispatched three batters in the top of the 8th.  Jason Bay started the bottom of the 8th with a walk, and J.D. Drew smacked a two-run homerun to make it a one-run game.  With two outs, Kotsay hit a double off Upton’s glove (it really could have been caught, although it would have been a fantastic catch), followed by a beautiful ten-pitch at-bat from Coco Crisp, that finally resulted in a run-scoring single to tie the game.

After 170 +\- games this season, Carlos Pena has hit into only two double plays.  Two, all season.  With one out and two on base in the top of the 9th inning, Red Sox fans were very pleased to see his third.  But the reality is that it was not Pena’s fault:  the Red Sox already had decided that they were going to win this game.

With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Youkilis reached on an in-field hit (which also could have been an out) and got to second on the throwing error to first.   I was surprised to see Tampa Bay walk Jason Bay to get to J.D. Drew.  I guess you look at the stats and make a call, but Drew has accepted many opportunities to be a hero, and last night was no exception.  With the count 3-1 (a hitter’s count, and Howell did NOT want to load the bases), Drew hit a change-up over Gross’s head in right field, and another Boston miracle was complete.

The Boston Red Sox have one eight straight ALCS elimination games.  I would love to see them make it ten, but last night’s victory also meant the season will not end with Boston simply lying down.  Let’s hope they can keep this momentum going for one more game.  If successful, they’ll need just one additional game to get back to the World Series.  Wouldn’t that be fun.

The Boston Red Sox’s World Series victory last night was very different from the win four years ago. In 2004, they were the Wild Card team, the underdog. They had managed to get into the World Series only after coming back from a 3-0 deficit against that team from New York that shall not be named. And the National League’s representative in 2004–the St. Louis Cardinals–was a very good team. Somehow, it was hard to believe it actually could happen. They had not done this in 86 years. They could not possibly be doing it now.

Not until that final out, not until Keith Foulke jogged the ball half way to first base and threw his excessively cautious underhand toss–and not until Doug Mientkiewicz actually caught it for out number three of game number four in the bottom of inning number nine–did you really believe they were going to win. Until that moment, something could go wrong. It had gone wrong in the past–very, very wrong. There was, after all, The Curse, which still could show up to stop the Red Sox when they needed only a simple out. It had happened before. Why should this year be any different?

The win in 2004 was magical, something many Red Sox fans had waited full lifetimes to witness. Headlines all over New England had a single, emphatically printed word: Finally!

This year, we knew the Red Sox were going to win the World Series even before the last game started. The Curse was dead, and nothing was going to stop this team. They simply were the better team by far, and it was just a matter of time. Certainly, the Rockies could win a game or two, but not four. Not against these Red Sox.

The 2007 Red Sox were the best team in baseball all year. Yes, they had intervals of mediocrity, and there were other teams that played amazing ball in the final weeks, including the Colorado Rockies. But the Red Sox’s 96 wins at the end of the regular season was tied only by Cleveland (the true runner up this year). They won their division for the first time in a great while, then earned the American League pennant by taking three straight against the Indians after trailing in the series 3-1. When it came time to play the World Series, they were expected to win. And when they did win, it was great. We stood there in the living room beaming at the TV as the players jumped all over each other. But if it was not magical like in 2004, that’s okay. That team had defied History to win the title. This team simply was the best.

And now, of course, we expect them to win every year. But all I want at the moment is to get some sleep.

There are games–losses, even–that you recall later with your head or your heart.  And then there are the games you remember with your stomach.  The Red Sox’s loss last night to the Cleveland Indians in game two of the American League Championship Series was one of those games.  It’s not that they lost, but how they lost.

The Red Sox had the lead twice, but their pitching was not able to hang onto it.  They also had their chances to win.  Kevin Youkilis fouled off 9 pitches before lining out to center field in the bottom of the ninth with the speedy Jacoby Ellsbury standing on second, waiting to score the winning run on a single.  In the bottom of the 10th, the Red Sox’s three best batters faced Cleveland’s worst reliever and went down in 15 pitches.

When Eric Gagne entered the game to pitch for Boston in the top of the 11th, I knew the Red Sox would not win.  I could feel it.  Gagne (to whom I maturely have started referring as Gag-me) once was a great closer but has been nothing short of disastrous for Boston.  Once again, he could not keep runners off the bases, and the first two runs of the 11th indeed were charged to Gagne, who picked up the loss.  Javier Lopez, however, gave up three runs, and Jon Lester surrendered two more.  By the time Gutierrez hit his three-run blast to put the Indians up by 7, I had retreated to a part of the house from which I still could hear the game but no longer could see it.

The series is tied 1-1 as it heads to Cleveland.  But if they want to move on, the Red Sox will have to get over a very tough loss pretty quickly.  And, with the entire bullpen spent from last night’s game, Daisuke Matsuzaka will need to show he is worth the $103 million the Red Sox paid for him when he takes the mound Monday.

At least it wasn’t the Yankees.

When 17-year-old Danny Vinik arrived at the Red Sox play-off game Friday night, I doubt he was expecting that within a few hours every member of Red Sox Nation would know his name. Comparing Danny Vinik with Steve Bartman, however, is a contrast between the words famous and infamous.

In case you don’t recall, Steve Bartman was the Chicago Cubs fan who reached for a foul ball in game 6 of the 2003 National League Championship Series and succeeded only in knocking the ball away from Cubs outfielder Moises Alou, with Chicago just five outs away from the World Series. It is highly likely that Alou would have caught the ball for the second out of the inning had Bartman not interfered. Instead, the Florida Marlins went on to score 8 runs that inning, and the Cubs could not recover emotionally in Game 7. Although Steve Bartman–a life-time Cubs fan–did not cause Alex Gonzales’s highly costly error a few moments later on a ground ball that should have resulted in an inning-ending double-play, and Bartman himself did not permit 8 runs to score that inning, and Bartman certainly did not cause the Cubs to fall apart in Game 7 the next night, and never mind the fact that many other fans around him also were reaching for that foul ball, his interference did play into the outcome of the game.

The foul ball off Manny Ramirez’s bat that Danny Vinik caught on Friday night also prevented a second out. Anaheim catcher Jeff Mathis not only would have had the ball, but the images and replay suggest that Vinik practically took the ball out of Mathis glove. Ramirez ended up walking to load the bases, and the Red Sox tied the game moments later on Mike Lowell’s sacrifice fly–a hit that would have been the third out but for Vinik.

Bartman was given a police escort from Wrigley field that night in 2003, with boos, threats, drink cups, and food items showering down on him from his fellow Cub fans. Vinik, by contrast, was congratulated by all the fans around him, including Stephen King, who sat two rows behind him, and has received a tremendous amount of positive attention from the press. Bartman left the game broken-hearted. Vinik will get a heart-swelling thrill each time he looks at that baseball, which I’m sure he will keep forever.

Although Mathis was visibly angry after Vinik caught the ball just over his waiting glove, he knew there was not much he could say about it. The rule is pretty simple: if a fan reaches into the field of play and catches or touches the ball, it is fan interference; if the ball goes into the stands, however, the fans have as much right to the ball as the players.

Compare either of these plays to the catch made by Jeff Maier that helped the New York Yankees beat the Baltimore Orioles in the 1996 American League Championship Series. Maier actually reached into the field of play and caught a ball that was incorrectly ruled a home run. In that case, fan interference should have been called.

It would appear, however, the rule on fan interference is not universally accepted. A relative of mine (who happens to be a hopeless Cub fan) called the Vinik play an “immense shame” and a “travesty,” adding: “If the Boston fans are exulting, they should be ashamed of themselves. It’s consistent with our ‘win at any cost’ philosophy as a society.”

Frankly, I doubt even the Angels would agree with this. Their catcher Mathis called it a “good play.” “Those guys,” he said, “they’re good fans, and they’re always paying attention.” And Angels manager Mike Scioscia said, “when you’re reaching in there, all bets are off.”

Win at any cost? A bit of an overstatement, methinks. It’s not like the Red Sox unleashed a billion bugs, as the Cleveland Indians apparently did to thwart the New York Yankees.

It’s impossible to know what would have happened had Vinik not caught that ball. Lowell may have swung the bat differently had there been two outs, and anything could have happened over the next four innings. But it’s clear that Vinik did cause that moment of the game to change. Still, in 2003, we did not complain about the rules–we blamed Bartman for not thinking. And I must say, this Red Sox fan is certainly not ashamed of himself for being thrilled with Vinik’s catch. The fans are part of the game–any player will tell you that.

In four years, I’ll buy Vinik a drink.

I don’t know if you were paying attention, but my dream from September 21st turned out to be only a bad dream, as the Red Sox won the American League East last night.  This actually is really good news, as it suggests the other elements of my dream also are not likely to happen.  At least, that’s what I now have decided to believe. 

The Chicago Cubs also won their division last night, returning to the post-season for the first time since 2003.  We should have had a Red Sox - Cubs World Series back in 2003, but both teams collapsed in a heap just when the pennant for their respective leagues was all but theirs.   Could this be the year?  I wonder if Steve Bartman will be attending any of the Cubs’ playoff games this time around.

You know, I like baseball–I really do–but I still found it odd last night when I had a dream about the Red Sox and their current struggles.

In my dream, I was listening to a call-in radio show.  It essentially was Car Talk, but the guys doing the show were Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy–the TV announcers for the Red Sox.  When I called in, I pointed out to them that New York had left in their schedule four home games against a pretty tough team (Toronto) and then six away games against easy teams (Tampa Bay and Baltimore).  The Red Sox, by contrast, have three away games against an easy team (Tampa Bay, which has done them in before), followed by six home games against two tougher clubs (Oakland and Minnesota).  This was news to Don and RemDawg (I guess they had not bothered to look at the upcoming schedule).  On balance, I told them, the Yankees–who are playing much better baseball right now–have an easier set of games remaining.  Accordingly, I predicted that the Yankees would overtake the Red Sox and win the division. 

I did not stop there, however.  I also predicted that the Red Sox would lose in the first round of the playoffs and that the Yankees would win the World Series.  Don and RemDawg were very sorry to hear this; we said good-bye, and I hung up.

On this occasion, I am hoping dreams do not come true.

Okay, I promise not to turn this into a sports rant, but I’ve just watched Eric Gagne lose yet another game for the Boston Red Sox. This guy may have been a solid pitcher at one point in his career, but either his age or his head has interfered with his ability to throw the ball. Tonight, he took a one-run lead into the bottom of the 8th and quickly got two out. After that, however, he walked three (being completely unable to find the strike zone after going up 0-2 on the third batter of the inning), gave up two hits, and allowed three runs to score. Three runs after two outs and no one on. And for that, he gets paid some pretty Big Bucks.

The Yankees, meanwhile, are on a tear, having one 11 out of 15 games in September. Boston’s lead in the division is down to 2 1/2 games, with 10 games left in the season (New York has 11). At one point it was 14 games. They lead the division by 12 games at the All Star break.

Cripes, I hate sports.

Mondays, I’ve decided, should be all about language. After all, last night’s Red Sox-Yankees game–a game that was dripping with almost stereotypical September drama: bottom of the ninth, two outs, Red Sox down by one, bases loaded, and up to bat comes David Ortiz, Big Papi, Mr. Walk-off–I really don’t want to talk about.

All that not said, considering I’m at the beginning of this little writing adventure (and no one is reading it yet), it feels like the right time to talk about opening sentences.

One is not supposed to judge a book by its cover–or so we’ve been told–but I confess I often do judge a book by its first sentence. The opening sentence is a wonderful opportunity for the author to make a strong first impression, to set a theme, or to introduce a mood. It provides a first peek into the story’s character and the writer’s mind. Consider “It was a dark and stormy night.” As maligned and over-played as that sentence is, think about everything it accomplishes.

I used to take my kids to the bookstore at midnight when the latest Harry Potter novel came out. After purchasing the book around 1:00 AM, we would proceed to the sidewalk, sit on the curb, and read the first sentence. The thrill of it always gave us chills.

As an exercise, I like to write opening sentences occasionally. Here are a few:

It was a creaky old porch swing, most recently loved only by spiders it seemed, but it still had a smooth, comfortable glide, and the early summer afternoon breezes felt good against Graham’s face.

This story’s really for people who have had their fingers gnawed off by alligators while they were trying to retrieve something dropped in a murky river, so if that’s never happened to you, you probably won’t like it.

My Aunt Gurt used to say I didn’t have a lick of sense, which, from my mind, was utterly bogus, and which, I’m not too modest to say, I proved completely false at the potluck dinner that Sunday when no one but me seemed to have any idea how to get yellow-mustard potato salad stains off the white carpet in the church meeting room.

What I could never really understand was why Tony chose me instead of Borky, considering that Borky had been married several times already and clearly had a much better knowledge of what made women tick.

“Get out of my face, you putrid little punk,” my daddy spat, shoving me backwards hard enough to make me fall on my ass.

To say I had a crush on Lilly, even after she killed Sheriff Perkins and his deputy, would be to understate the situation quite badly.

An opening sentence can provide for the reader what that little hole in the door must have provided Howard Carter when he discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb: a small glimpse of the mysteries and treasures within.

But you know, I will say this about the Red Sox-Yankees series. The two teams played 27 innings of baseball over the last three days. The Yankees won two of those 27 innings and, consequently, two of the three games. Friday it was the top of the 8th when they scored 6 runs and won 8-7. That was awful. Last night, it was again the top of the 8th … and one pitch. With two on and two out and two strikes on Derek Jeter, Schilling could have ended the inning (and a brilliant night of pitching) with a strikeout, keeping the game tied 1-1. Instead, his last pitch of the night did not touch ground until it had sailed deep over the Green Monster, putting the Yankees ahead 4-1.

Two innings out of 27.

But I really don’t want to talk about it.